California Form MC-012: Claiming Post-Judgment Costs and Interest

California Form MC-012, the Memorandum of Costs After Judgment, Acknowledgment of Credit, and Declaration of Accrued Interest, is how a judgment creditor updates the court on what a debtor still owes. The form captures three things: post-judgment collection costs you have paid, credits for any payments the debtor has made, and interest that has accrued on the unpaid balance. File it with the court clerk, serve a copy on the debtor, and if nobody objects within 10 days the new total becomes the enforceable judgment amount going forward.

What to Gather Before You Start

Pull your records together first. You need the date the original judgment was entered, the principal amount awarded, and a complete payment history showing every dollar the debtor has paid since then. You also need receipts or records for every collection expense you plan to claim, along with the dates those costs were incurred. A missing receipt or a lost payment date can knock a legitimate expense off your claim.

The form itself is a free PDF from the California Courts website.¹ You can also download it from the Judicial Council’s forms library.²

Which Costs You Can Actually Claim

California law limits what you can add to a judgment. Only the specific categories of post-judgment collection expenses listed in the Code of Civil Procedure qualify.³ The recoverable ones are:

Abstract of judgment fees. The statutory fee for issuing an abstract is $40, and you can also claim what the county recorder charged to record and index it.⁴
Writ of execution fees. Issuing a writ costs $40, which can be added to the amount owed.⁵
Judgment lien filing fees, meaning the statutory fee for filing a notice of judgment lien on personal property.
Levying officer costs. Sheriff or marshal fees for serving writs, performing levies, or carrying out wage garnishments, to the extent those fees were not already collected during the levy itself.
Debtor examination costs, but only if a judge or referee has approved the amount as reasonable and necessary.
Attorney fees, only if the underlying judgment itself included an award of attorney fees. If your original judgment did not include them, you cannot tack them on now.⁶

The form also has an “Other” line for additional statutory costs, but you have to identify the specific statute authorizing each one. Costs outside these categories or without a statutory basis will likely be struck if the debtor challenges them.

Which Interest Rate Applies

Unpaid judgments accrue simple interest on the outstanding principal. The default rate is 10% per year, but a lower 5% rate applies to certain consumer and medical debts.⁷ The 5% rate applies to:

Medical expense judgments under $200,000 in remaining principal against an individual debtor.
Personal debt judgments under $50,000 in remaining principal against an individual debtor, where the underlying transaction was primarily for personal, family, or household purposes. Credit card balances, auto financing contracts, and payday loans all fit here.

The 5% rate does not apply to debts arising from fraud or other wrongful conduct, or to judgments for unpaid wages.

Running the Numbers

Interest on a California judgment is simple, not compound. Divide the annual rate by 365 to get a daily rate, then multiply by the number of days the balance has been outstanding. For a $25,000 judgment at 10%, the daily rate is $6.85 ($25,000 × 0.10 ÷ 365). Over 180 days, that produces $1,233 in accrued interest.

If partial payments have reduced the principal along the way, recalculate from each payment date forward using the new lower principal. The Judicial Council publishes Form MC-013-INFO, which walks through this step by step and includes a worksheet.⁸ Use it. Interest errors are one of the most common reasons a debtor challenges the memorandum.

Applying Partial Payments in the Right Order

When a debtor makes a partial payment, California law requires you to apply it in a set order: first to accrued interest, then to the judgment principal (which includes any court-approved post-judgment costs).⁸ You cannot apply a payment to principal first in order to preserve a higher interest-bearing balance.

Section 2 of the form reflects this. You report the total payments received to date, show how much went to accrued interest and how much reduced the principal, and the remaining principal after credits becomes the base for the interest calculation in Section 3.

Filling Out the Form Section by Section

The MC-012 has four sections. The header asks for standard case information: your name, the debtor’s name, the case number, and the court where the judgment was entered.²

Section 1: Post-Judgment Costs

Section 1a has eight numbered lines matching the recoverable categories: abstract of judgment fees, recording fees, lien filing fees, writ fees, levying officer costs, debtor examination costs, attorney fees, and the “Other” line. Enter the dollar amount for each one. If you have multiple expenses in a single category (two separate writ fees from different enforcement attempts, for example), check the box indicating multiple items. Line 1a(9) is the total of all costs in this filing. Section 1b is for costs previously allowed in an earlier MC-012. Section 1c adds 1a and 1b for a cumulative total.

Section 2: Credits

Section 2a asks for total payments received to date, including direct payments from the debtor and returns from the levy process. Split that total between the portion credited to accrued interest and the portion credited to principal. Section 2b shows the principal still remaining after those credits.

Section 3: Accrued Interest

Enter the total accrued interest that remains due after applying any credits. The form asks for the interest rate used and the principal it was applied to. If different portions of the judgment carry different interest rates (part at 5%, the rest at 10%, for instance), the form has space to break those out.

Section 4: Declaration

Check whether you are the judgment creditor, the creditor’s agent, or the creditor’s attorney. Sign and date under penalty of perjury. The declaration states that the costs claimed are correct, reasonable, necessary, and unsatisfied. The signature is what gives the document legal force.

Serving and Filing

After completing the MC-012, serve a copy on the debtor (or their attorney) before filing with the court. Service can be done by mail or in person.³ Complete a proof of service to document how and when the debtor was notified: Form POS-030 for first-class mail⁹ or Form POS-020 for personal service.¹⁰

File the original MC-012 and the completed proof of service with the court clerk handling your case. Many California superior courts now use mandatory e-filing for civil documents, so check your court’s local rules to see whether electronic submission is required. Courts without mandatory e-filing still accept documents in person or by mail. There is no separate filing fee for the MC-012. If the debtor does not challenge the memorandum within the deadline, the clerk records the costs and interest as part of the judgment, and that updated figure becomes the new enforceable balance for future wage garnishments, bank levies, or property liens.

The Two-Year Deadline on Each Cost

Every collection expense you claim on the MC-012 must be filed and served within two years of the date you incurred it.³ The clock starts on the date you actually paid or became obligated to pay each specific cost. Not the judgment date, not the date you decided to file. Miss the window and the court will not accept the expense.

For long-running collection cases, this often means filing multiple MC-012s over the life of the judgment. A writ fee paid in January 2025 expires for recovery purposes in January 2027. A levying officer fee from June 2025 expires in June 2027. Bundling costs into periodic filings, annually for instance, keeps everything within the deadline without burying you in paperwork.

How the Debtor Can Push Back

The debtor has 10 days from the date of service to file a motion to tax the costs claimed on the MC-012.³ If the MC-012 was served by mail within California, the debtor gets an extra five calendar days. Mail service from outside California adds more time depending on the origin.¹¹

A motion to tax asks a judge to review specific line items and disallow any that are unreasonable, unnecessary, or not authorized by statute. The debtor might argue the interest calculation used the wrong rate, a claimed cost falls outside what the law permits, or a fee was already recovered through the levy process. The judge then issues an order allowing or disallowing each challenged cost.

If no motion is filed in time, the costs and interest become a permanent part of the judgment balance, and the creditor can enforce the higher amount without further court approval. That finality is why the 10-day window matters on both sides.

Judgment Duration and Renewal

A California money judgment is enforceable for 10 years from the date of entry. Before that period expires, you can renew it by filing an application that extends enforceability for another 10 years.¹² Renewal preserves the full balance, including all previously approved post-judgment costs and accrued interest. If the judgment qualifies for the 5% rate under current law, filing a renewal application now locks that rate in going forward.⁷

For certain personal debt and medical expense judgments, renewal is limited to one time for a five-year extension rather than the standard 10. If you are collecting on a consumer debt, check whether this restriction applies before assuming you have decades to work with. Letting a judgment lapse without renewal means losing the ability to enforce it at all, and every MC-012 you filed along the way becomes worthless.

1
California Courts. Memorandum of Costs After Judgment, Acknowledgement of Credit, and Declaration of Accrued Interest (MC-012)
2
Judicial Council of California. MC-012 Memorandum of Costs After Judgment, Acknowledgment of Credit, and Declaration of Accrued Interest
3
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure Section 685-070
4
California Courts. Superior Court of California Statewide Civil Fee Schedule
5
California Courts. How to Get a Writ of Execution
6
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure CCP 685-040
7
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure CCP 685.010
8
Judicial Council of California. Information Sheet for Calculating Interest and Amount Owed on a Judgment
9
Judicial Council of California. Proof of Service by First-Class Mail – Civil
10
Judicial Council of California. Proof of Personal Service – Civil
11
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure Section 1013
12
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure CCP 683-120